Thanksgiving is Different This Year, But it Should be Different Every Year.
Even though I am currently home from college for Thanksgiving break, I find myself surrounded by schools of thought; pictures painted of unity, and a sanitized version of history that obscures and whitewashes the painful colonial violence against the Native Americans.
The more and more I break away from these schools of thought, taught by society and our education system in tandem, I realize that most of our holiday celebrations are flawed. Thanksgiving in particular wasn’t all “peace, love, and pass the peas.”
In the US, Thanksgiving is a time for family, parades, good food, and reflection. But the reflection isn’t typically on the tradition and its origin (and if it is, it’s based on misinformation). For many, the settler’s arrival wasn’t the start of a new world… It was the end of one.
Sadly, as historian David J. Silverman points out, Thanksgiving has been “stripped of its political realities, propagating the misperception that Native Americans just willingly gave up their land to the colonists.”
We pick and choose what we teach our children, what we remember, and what we keep as part of America’s past. I cannot blame anyone for that — who doesn’t want to erase instances of severe wrongdoing? But if you’re reading this then you can hear the truth.
The pilgrims did not find an empty land any more than Columbus “discovered” anything. Every acre of this country is Indian land. The pilgrims did not come here seeking religious freedom; they already had that. They came here as part of a commercial venture. They introduced sexism, racism, anti-lesbian and gay bigotry, jails, and the class system to this once inherently peaceful land.
They were no better than the English they were fleeing from when it comes to their treatment of the Indigenous people, and frankly, that treatment still exists today.
For those reasons (and far too many more), Native Americans have gathered at Cole’s Hill in Plymouth to commemorate a National Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving Day since 1970 — something I was never taught in school, and something I encourage you all to research further and maybe take some time today to watch and reflect.
Celebrating Thanksgiving is not a problem. The holiday is rooted in positive sentiments that deserve celebration, but as you gather around the dinner table (or a zoom call), spare a moment to think about what happened back when the English first arrived and how much Native people still suffer today in THEIR country.
